1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to the field of networking communications and more particularly to a method and system for allowing efficient communications across disparate networking technologies such as asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) and Ethernet.
2. Description of the Related Art
Network technologies are not homogeneous. End-to-end connections can span multiple networking technologies, for example, Ethernet, asynchronous transfer mode, frame relay (FR), multi-protocol label switching (MPLS), and Internet protocol (IP). In addition, an Ethernet network may include multiple customer edge devices, switches, and routers. These components may communicate using different protocols, spanning the various layers of the OSI interworking model (e.g., L1-L7). For example, routers communicate using a layer three (L3) protocol while the switches communicate using a layer two (L2) protocol.
While solutions have been proposed to allow the transport of data between end points supported by disparate technologies, such solutions are typically inefficient and inadequate solutions such as encapsulation and data extraction and simple repacketizing. These solutions fail to consider or address the preservation of aspects of the data transport environment such as quality of service, prioritization, etc. For example, class of service bits in an Ethernet frame are ignored and/or dropped when current technologies convert or encapsulate the data for delivery on the ATM portion of the network.
It is desirable to have an internetworking solution which allows the transport of ATM originated data to an Ethernet-based destination, and vice-versa, in a manner which preserves, throughout the network, networking features associated with the originating networking technology.